The FOI process has delivered up a moderately amusing bit of bitchiness after a Legislative Assembly cockup saw Liberal Leader overspending on staff and having to beg Chief Minister Gallagher for extra monies.
It’s not entirely clear why Zed waited three months before moving to fix it.

So what do we have here? A Friday afternoon FOI dump.
– Documents in relation to contested, inappropriate and/or queried expense claims
– Documents in relation to deliberations and discussions on FOI requests received during the 7th Assembly
– Interest declarations generated during the 7th Assembly
– Discussions and deliberations on changes to Administrative Orders and [...]

Overnight Zed Seselja was harking back to 2009 to show the Labor Government is no better than his own.
This morning the time warp is extending to 2008!:
ACT public servants were being asked to stay back after hours to cost Labor Party campaign announcements in the middle of the 2008 election, while Labor Party headquarters was [...]

The ACT’s parliament, the Legislative Assembly, has a Standing Committee on Environment, Climate Change and Water, conducting an Inquiry into Current and Potential Ecotourism in the ACT and Region. The Committee has made an open invitation to the public for submissions. The Committee is comprised of one Assembly Member each from the Greens, Liberal [...]

The team working on a refresh of the Legislative Assembly website are asking for feedback and have specifically asked for the insights of our sagacious readership.
They’ve got a survey to fill in but will also be reading the comments here.

Anyone seen the below? Looks interesting.
It’s an inquiry by the local parliament, the ACT Legislative Assembly. Submissions are due Friday, 23 March 2012. A submission can be a short email or long document – whatever takes your fancy. Both can give good ideas that get inquiries on the right track, so they come up [...]

Katy Gallagher and Meredith Hunter have released a joint communique following their meeting to discuss the Parliamentary Agreement which underpins the ACT Government.
They’re playing happy families and seem to be agreeing that most of the agreement has been delivered on, which leaves the Greens to sharpen their pencils for a wishlist post-election.
But of interest is [...]

Assembly Speaker Shane Rattenbury has released his statement to the house on where to next for the hapless Opposition Leader’s timesheet woes.
“I wish to inform the Assembly I have decided on an audit team to undertake the work. The audit team will be headed by Mr Ron McLeod AM and supported by locally based firm [...]

Simon Corbell has let the world know he’s lowered the age of voting enrolment from 17 to 16:
The ACT Labor Government has successfully lowered the age for people to enrol to vote from
age 17 to 16, to make it easier for them to be ready to vote by age 18, Attorney General, Simon
Corbell, said today.
“This [...]

Chief Minister Gallagher has outlined her plans for the new year:
“Our legislative program this year reflects our continued investment in the things that matter most to Canberrans and reflects our determination to keep delivering an even better Canberra,” the Chief Minister concluded.
“The full legislative program demonstrates just how hard we are working to maintain a [...]

With the Liberals’ timesheet saga getting worse we’ve got a copy of John Hargreaves’ motion passed by the Assembly this morning. It’s not happy reading for the Liberals, even less so because it requires them to answer an unholy series of questions by COB Thursday:
(a) why did the Leader of the Opposition fail to observe [...]

Chief Minister Gallagher has gone nuclear on Liberal Leader Zed Seselja and his office administration:
Documents released under Freedom of Information to the Canberra Times today appear to reveal systematic abuse of Federal and ACT laws.
“These documents reveal a leader who appears to not only be an incompetent administrator but also one whose moral and ethical [...]

The Canberrra Times brings word that RiotACT’s own Gungahlin Al (aka Alan Kerlin) is throwing his hat into the political ring as a Green candidate for Molonglo.
With the Greens hard up against it to hold Caroline Le Couteur’s seat (kindly calculated by neutrals to have roughly a snowball’s chance in hell) a new high profile [...]

So as 2011 comes to an end we look forward to the prospect of an ACT election in October next year.
Our once every four years, all or nothing, chance to have some sort of say in how we’re governed, where we get presented a smorgasbord of candidates most Canberrans have little to no idea about.
Let’s [...]

Chief Minister Gallagher is blowing the trumpet for the latest year gone past in the Legislative Assembly.
Here’s what she considers to be the highlights:
Health Amendment Bill 2011
The Bill sought to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and quality of health services in the ACT and allowed for the establishment of the Local Hospital Network Council.
Smoking in Cars [...]

The Legislative Assembly’s Standing Committee on Administration and Procedures has announced they’re going to be reviewing the whole business of the governance in the ACT.
The Committee consists of MLAs Shane Rattenbury (Chairperson), Mrs Vicki Dunne, Ms Amanda Bresnan and Mr John Hargreaves.
“A full review of the Self Government Act would be beneficial because it is [...]

Sine Jon Stanhope’s departure the difficulties of Katy Gallagher’s team in mastering the Cheif Minister’s website have been a source of ongoing humour and fascination.
Today the Liberals have kindly pointed out to us that despite Chris Bourke having been made a minister some weeks ago there’s no mention of him on the Ministers Page.
A harmless [...]

Chief Minister Gallagher is stamping her tiny feet after the Liberals and Greens joined forces to slow down her new Freedom Of Information laws:
Chief Minister, Katy Gallagher, and Attorney General, Simon Corbell, have today expressed disappointment at the refusal of the Liberal Party and the Greens to debate FOI laws that would further open up [...]

The Canberra Times has inside word that after a diabolically bad week Chief Minister Gallagher is spreading the ministerial load by bringing the fast tracked green MLA Chris Bourke to the Cabinet table.
Apparently he’ll be taking the education portfolio, not health.

The Greens’ Shane Rattenbury is rather proud of getting his marriage equality motion through the Legislative Assembly tonight.
At best it’s gesture politics, but hey, it’s done.
Some suspect a more reasonable compromise might be taking marriage out of the law entirely and let people make it up as they go along. (which they’re pretty much doing [...]

In a cunning assault on independents the Liberals Vicki Dunne is seeking to legislate a campaign spending limit of $60,000 per candidate.
“This is an important Bill which will help ensure elections are not an arms race and democracy cannot be purchased,” ACT Shadow Attorney-General Vicki Dunne said today.
“The Bill would set a cap of [...]

A busy Simon Corbell has informed us that his point-to-point speed camera legislation has passed the Legislative Assembly.
The first point to point system is being built on Hindmarsh Drive and is expected to become operational later this year. A second system is expected to be commissioned in 2012.
The system uses cameras equipped with with Automated [...]

Zed Seselja is very excited that Labor and the Greens have joined forces to place discrimination protection over forcing kids to go to school.
“The amendments I introduced to the Discrimination Act would have allowed businesses who choose to their own detriment not to serve students they believe are wagging school,” ACT Opposition Leader Zed Seselja [...]

Question Time has been a parliamentary tradition for hundreds of years.
Today in the Legislative Assembly no less a personage than the Liberals’ Alistair Coe will see his own innovation brought to the institution:
ACT Government Ministers will face increased scrutiny from today as a result of question time changes introduced by Member for Ginninderra, Alistair [...]

Minister for the stuff no one else wants, Joy Burch, is demanding answers as to why no one asks her questions during Legislative Assembly sittings:
“Mr Doszpot has asked almost as many questions about Health than he has about all his own portfolios put together, and I urge Mr Seselja to let Mr Doszpot prepare his [...]

The ABC’s 7.30 ACT team have sent in the rundown for tomorrow night. Ross Solly will be hosting (we’re assured Chris is on holiday) and here’s what they have planned assuming nothing major breaks:
1. MP
Here in Canberra, at the Street Theatre a play is about to open that could not be more timely – it [...]

The Canberra Times has the odd news that despite no word appearing on the Liberals website Zed Seselja and Steve Dozspot are going to try to swap electorates at next year’s election.
Mr Seselja has represented the inner Canberra electorate of Molonglo since being elected in October 2004, despite living just across the border in Brindabella.
The [...]

The ABC reports that the Liberals Zed Seselja is in some hot water after a new staff member used a Legislative Assembly photocopier to print his flyers.
“It was a new staff member and they printed something in error. The material wasn’t used,” he said.
“I understand it was a few dollars worth of material and it’s [...]

The Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, Shane Rattenbury, has expressed concern that ACT Policing has announced a large scale roll out of tasers to front line police despite a motion of the Assembly calling for the release of a review into their use.
“In October last year the Assembly passed a motion requiring the Police Minister [...]

Liberal Leader Zed Seselja has put out a huffy media release railing against Labor for failing to support his motion of no confidence in Speaker Rattenbury.
“Shane Rattenbury has publicly and repeatedly stated that he ‘supports illegal protests’,” Mr Seselja said.
“Shane Rattenbury is not just any Member of the Assembly, but the lawmaker tasked with upholding [...]

The ACT’s electoral system is so badly broken apparently it requires a swathe of the Inner North to pretend it’s part of Belconnen.
And if you need an elected representative (rather the point of paying for the whole farcical exercise) you’ve got at best five able to fob you off to another one (seven if you [...]

The Canberra Times has the woeful news that the ACT Cabinet has been issued with ipads to read their cabinet papers on.
But not just any ipads. No, they’ve been specially crippled!
The iPads have had all of their capabilities, except the e-reader feature, disabled, making them impossible to hack and preventing bored frontbenchers from surfing [...]